Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Telelearning: A Case Study ...

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Students were neutral to both of these statements. This is probably due in large part to the fact that when the students were completing the questionnaires and interviews for this research they were only approximately half way through the course. Many students would not have yet received very much feedback on the project proposals and would not have received a grade. [The course had only one assignment - to complete a research proposal. Feedback was given on early versions of the proposal but no grade.] Three questions were asked of students regarding feedback: 1. "The tutor/instructor provides useful feedback.", 2. "The feedback I receive is individualized.", and 3. "I do not receive feedback in a timely manner." Table 27 depicts these results. Table 27 Student Response to Course Feedback Item Instructor feedback is useful Feedback is individualized Feedback is not timely Response Distribution SD SA Number of Students Responding Mean StandardDeviation 1 2 0 7 4 14 3.79 1.25 0 1 0 8 5 14 4.21 0.80 4 3 2 4 1 14 2.64 1.39 Students thought the instructor feedback is both useful and individualized. they were neutral as to whether the feedback was timely. Once again this is largely due to the design of the course where most of the feedback is given in the later part of the course when drafts of proposals are being reviewed. A few of the students indicated they required more feedback at regular intervals which was personalized: Daily/weekly assignments/input/interaction are needed. (student 5) I’d like to have more feedback from my instructor - more regular and personalized feedback. (student 14) I would have liked to probe some of the answers to my questions to a get better understanding of the advise being given. (student 6) 41
Despite the online and communal format of the course, the instructors maintained student confidentiality when they felt it was necessary through the use of private e-mail and telephone: I’ve got a couple of telephone calls from students who were worried about something and they didn’t want to put that in front of everybody. I got some e-mail. So people dealt with [confidentiality] quite well I thought. (instructor 1) When I was telling people that they weren’t participating enough that all went in private e-mail. (instructor 1) If I wanted to send anything that only went to one student I would just do it by e-mail. It wasn’t done in the system at all. That’s fine as long as you have e-mail accounts for everyone then you can do it on a one-to-one basis. (instructor 2) You have to be so careful how you provide feedback to students especially when you are giving critical feedback on proposals. People get devastated by it. So [the challenge is] finding a way that you can do that in a public forum without everybody seeing it. (instructor 2) Delivery Method. Students were asked to respond to three statements regarding comfort with the delivery method: 1. " When I began this course, I was worried about the delivery method", 2. "At this point in the course I am comfortable with the delivery method" and 3. "I was not provided with enough training in the use of the technology at the start of the course." Responses were based on a five point Likert type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Table 28 depicts these results: Table 28 Comfort with the Online Delivery Method for the Research Methods Course Statement Response Distribution Number of Mean Stan- Students dardResponDevi- SD SA dingation Began worried 2 1 2 4 5 14 3.64 1.15 Now comfortable 0 1 3 2 8 14 4.21 1.05 Not given enough training on the use of the technology 4 2 2 4 0 12 2.50 1.31 42
Page 1 and 2: Assessing the Costs and Benefits of
Page 3 and 4: Summary and Major Findings This pro
Page 5 and 6: Benefits and Limitations Specific t
Page 7 and 8: Novelty • The course contributed
Page 9 and 10: Organization.......................
Page 11 and 12: Table 22 Student Response to the De
Page 13 and 14: Methodology The methodology develop
Page 15 and 16: esults, and writing research report
Page 17 and 18: Section A: Student Characteristics
Page 19 and 20: Table 4 Student Computer and Techno
Page 21 and 22: Table 6 Student Response to Deliver
Page 23 and 24: Equivalent enrollments (FTE's) with
Page 25 and 26: Delivery of the course was through
Page 27 and 28: As can be seen in Table 10 over the
Page 29 and 30: student society fees. Similarly, th
Page 31 and 32: Table 15 Main Cost Findings Finding
Page 33 and 34: I can do my course work outside my
Page 35 and 36: Table 17 Benefits and Limitations o
Page 37 and 38: particular student raised a questio
Page 39 and 40: The text was practical and realisti
Page 41 and 42: on a course that I go to class. But
Page 43 and 44: something in writing, we would get
Page 45 and 46: Interaction and User Friendliness T
Page 47: There are times that I would like t
Page 51 and 52: who can manage on their own and who
Page 53 and 54: Table 30 Benefits and Limitations o
Page 55 and 56: Some of the non-credit courses desi
Page 57 and 58: trying to deal with her problems an
Page 59 and 60: Drawbacks [to this delivery method]
Page 61 and 62: again. (However, if I were asking q
Page 63 and 64: Conclusion Several findings of inte
Page 65 and 66: References Bates, A.W. (1995). Tech
Page 67 and 68: Finally, an instrument for assessme
Page 69 and 70: (Paraphrased from, Design Principle
Page 71 and 72: environment include providing a str
Page 73: Table 39 Response Distribution of T

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